


and the night was black

by joisattempting



Series: look over there it's a wild falsettos college au [8]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Blackouts, Card Games, F/F, Kinda, M/M, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Power Outage, a smidge of whizzvin, because I like that, chubby marvin!, cordelia is uno sensei, fucking fight me, it’s only mentioned though, whizzer and marvin have matching glasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisattempting/pseuds/joisattempting
Summary: the power goes out at the apartment.
Relationships: Dr. Charlotte/Cordelia (Falsettos), Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Series: look over there it's a wild falsettos college au [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1518932
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63





	and the night was black

**Author's Note:**

> it’s pART EIGHT  
i’m so sorry i take such long breaks with writing these, but i had a sudden burst of energy so i decided to do this! let’s hope it’s not too bad lmao it’s 11 at night
> 
> just a a side note, any temperatures mentioned here are in fahrenheit! i had to use a converter lmao
> 
> comments and kudos make my day :)

Filler days. That was Charlotte’s favourite way to describe days like the bland, nondescript one she was stuck in at the moment. When, over the twenty-four hour opportunity the universe was presented with to flip her life on its head and make things interesting, little to nothing would happen. No news, whether that be good or bad. No pop quizzes from her obsessed professor. There weren’t any strange, pungent smells omitting from the kitchen that signified her girlfriend’s cooking. She didn’t even have homework that she could focus all her squandered energy onto. The city was quiet, as though every single person residing in Manhattan was joining her on her filler day. Maybe it was the cold. Mother Nature decided to abuse her subjects by bestowing upon them snow, rain, and, if she was really pissed, temperatures below zero in November. That wasn’t supposed to happen yet.

Everyone was home - no plans were ever made on days such as this one. The universe simply didn’t allow it. Of course, these were the ideal circumstances for the four to “bond”, or something, but nobody thought to pitch any ideas, should there be any floating around in their numb minds.

However, she supposed filler days were mandatory. They were the ones that built up the impatience and tension until the sun rose on those bright, stimulating days everyone so zealously anticipated. Could she say it was rewarding? Getting through a day that had no schedule or structure was just as fulfilling as crawling into bed on the last day of finals week. In a way, they were somewhat similar, yet whereas one day you were sprinting from classroom to exam hall with your notes flying like pigeons out of your binder, the next day you found yourself counting the air slits in the AC. Which one did Charlotte prefer? She couldn’t give an answer, honestly. 

Ironically, it was Friday night. When kids their age were supposed to be out past city curfew, screaming in the streets and leaning drunkenly on lampposts. As far as Charlotte knew, none of their party of six had plans. So... why were they all still home? They’d all come to accept filler days. They all knew that you couldn’t go your whole college life without spending some time lounging aimlessly in your apartment, because goddamnit, there wasn’t anything else to do. It was sort of easy to tell, right when your eyes blinked open and pulled apart the shut drapes, whether it was a filler day or not. Some kind of sixth sense, that was particularly strong in Charlotte, Whizzer falling behind as a close second. But it was November, meaning Thanksgiving and Marvin’s birthday. The filler days wouldn’t last long. Hopefully, the raging thunderstorm outside would be the same.

She was just about to Skype her mother back in Trussville (she had to do something), but before she did so, she leaned over to flip the lightswitch on the wall that activated the dangling ceiling lights above the couch. 

And then, from Marvin’s room, “Whizzer, you aren’t funny, turn the lights back on!”

Frowning, she tried the lights again. Nothing. The power was out. 

Well, at least it was something to focus on. 

The door to the guys’ room unlocked and out came a grumpy Marvin, bundled up in thermal pants and his university sweatshirt, the hood drawn over his curly head. In his hand, he clutched a flashlight. “The power’s out,” he mumbled. 

“Wow, I wouldn’t have guessed,” Whizzer said trenchantly, appearing from behind the bathroom door, wearing only underwear and thick socks, with a blanket pulled tight around his body. “Shit, it’s freezing in here,”

“Heater’s out. No electricity,” Cordelia called from her room as she rooted through the drawers in search of something warm.

Marvin swept a stray curl from his eye. “Maybe it’s because you’re only wearing underwear and socks, Whizzer,” 

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t look like a fucking polar bear,”

Pulling up the forecast on her phone, Charlotte squinted as the overwhelmingly bright light of the screen illuminated her tired face. “It says it’s out all over the city. The government are doing their best to fix it as soon as all the rain and thunder stops, but we don’t know how long that’s gonna take,”

Cordelia groaned outwardly, emerging from the bedroom in fuzzy socks and a thick, cotton robe. She wore her dusty-pink beanie, the one with the large rainbow pompom at the top. “What are we supposed to do till then?”

“Close all the windows, unplug basically everything in the kitchen,” Marvin piped, a new authority to his voice that made Whizzer start sweating amidst the bitter cold. Blackouts were common in the law student’s hometown, thus he knew the procedure at the back of his hand. He had it easier this time, however - there weren’t any terrified, crying little brothers to care for. Marvin himself was probably the most scared of thunderstorms out of the four of them, though he was too prideful and dignified to admit it. “The stove, the microwave, everything. We need to stay together in one place, and keep that room as warm as we can,”

Whizzer reacted so quickly that his blanket fell to the ground, and he hurriedly tried to cover his torso with his arms. “We could build a fort!” he said, as an army of goosebumps attacked his body. 

Storms had been a weakness of his ever since he was a kid. He’d wail and sob in fear at the angry crashes and the caliginous sky outside, but the rushed blanket forts made by his older siblings always seemed to pacify him. Fondly Whizzer remembered simpler times, when his two-year-old self would sit in the lap of his sister, and she’d help him count the seconds between each thunderous clap. And then, when the waterworks finally came to a stop, one of his brothers would put a CD into the player that was connected to the TV, and they’d watch some Disney movie. Nothing seemed to change as he grew, and so he’d attempt to convince his friends to build one with him whenever he got the chance. There was never a reason why; Whizzer didn’t want to humiliate himself. 

“You and Dee can do that,” Charlotte ordered. “Marvin, since you’re the only other logical human being here, you’re going to help me find food and close the windows. Sorry, darling, I love you,” she added this last part on seeing her girlfriend’s look of mock offense. 

Tiredly, Marvin rubbed an eye behind his glasses. Whizzer couldn’t help but stare. Just a little, though, he wasn’t that indiscreet. But hey, he didn’t exactly look terrible in that sweater. That sweater, which covered his hands and went down to about his thigh. He’d bought it two sizes larger purposefully - he was fresh out of high school, and, having started eating properly again, was experiencing insecurities concerning his body all over again. It was only recently that he’d grown more comfortable with exposing his stomach and soft arms. Whizzer didn’t mind in the slightest. They were a part of Marvin, in the end. Along with his freckles, his glasses, those crystal-blue eyes-

He needed to stop. 

“Copy that. Whizzer, go put some fucking clothes on, for Christ’s sake. If you die of hypothermia, I swear to God,”

“Can I borrow your thermal sweater?”

“Am I going to get it back this time?”

Exasperatedly, the taller man sighed. “I’m telling you, there’s a void in my drawer that makes all the clothes I borrow disappear. Like, we need to get some theorists in on this, because I probably made some genius scientific discovery,”

Marvin pulled at the strings on his hoodie. “Just get all the blankets and Yankee candles you can find,”

The group disbanded, agreeing to meet back in the Kitchoom (yet another name that Cordelia had come up with), which was what they called their open-plan kitchen and living room. The mentioned blonde followed Whizzer, who had retrieved his blanket, into the guys’ room, which he made a mess of as he searched for Marvin’s godforsaken thermal sweatshirt. After he’d jumped into sweatpants, they split up and organised a two-man (and woman) search party for the candles. Whizzer and Cordelia alike found blankets and random flashlights of all shapes and sizes as they turned the house on its head. 

Meanwhile, the two more organised, levelheaded roommates had taken a similar approach. Charlotte was pulling out the plugs to the stove and the microwave as Marvin locked the windows and the front door, then heading for the bathroom in search of the first aid kit. Just in case. The doctor searched the pantry for anything non-perishable that they could eat for dinner, and almost cried with relief at the sight of bread, peanut butter, and water. There was a box of crackers and a cookie jar in there, too, which she grabbed for Whizzer’s sake. 

“How is it that you manage to look decent, first of all, at nine PM, and second of all, when it’s 44 degrees outside?” Marvin asked Whizzer when the four met up again, as he eyed the photographer’s favourite grey sweats. He found it extremely unfair that his own thermal sweatshirt looked better on him. 

“It’s an inherited talent,” Whizzer shrugged. “Now, come help us make this fucking fort,”

The apartment grew considerably warmer after an hour or so. Around five Yankee candles had been lit. Everyone was huddled together, curled up in the copious blankets that nobody knew they even owned. They got crumbs on the pillows and their clothes as they spread the soft peanut butter onto slices of bread, but nobody seemed to mind. Currently, Mulan was playing in the background - Whizzer, forever a Disney fanatic, had it downloaded on his iPad’s Netflix. Howbeit, none of them were paying attention, being too immersed in the game of Uno they were playing. 

Cordelia put down a yellow reverse card, a chorus of groans erupting from the other three. 

“You sick son of a bitch,” Marvin said. “I was just about to fucking win,”

“Wait, does this mean I get Charlotte’s power cards now? Because it goes like this?” Whizzer gestured in a semi-circle, starting at Cordelia and ending at himself, indicating the order of turns. 

Nodding, Cordelia grinned devilishly. 

“Marvin, you’re gonna have to add Cordelia Thompson to the list of people you’re suing after we graduate,”

A great deal of yelling, attempting to cheat, and incensed promises of future lawsuits later, Cordelia ended up winning that game, plus another one, and was crowned Uno Sensei. Frankly, nobody was surprised. Each one of them knew of and feared her ways with Uno. Then, they all turned their attention towards whatever Mulan was doing on the screen at that moment. 

“That grandma is iconic,” Marvin remarked, towards the end of the movie. “All my grandmother ever did was make me run laps around the block five times,”

Charlotte pinched the bridge of her nose, in the middle of a heated debate with her girlfriend. “You can’t cut your hair with a sword, Dee. That’s so inaccurate. Plus, you could probably hit your neck and die,”

“Well, Mulan did it, and she’s still alive by the end,” the blonde shrugged, in a futile attempt to rebut her friend’s point. 

“Duh, she’s the protagonist,”

“Protagonists die!” 

“Guys, Whizzer,” Marvin’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, and he pointed at the other man, who was currently snoozing contentedly, cocooned in two blankets. His glasses lay askew across his face. Don’t ask how, but the law student found himself carefully removing the spectacles, folding up the temples, and setting them on a book Charlotte had brought into the fort with them. He smiled softly down at Whizzer, adjusting the blue blanket at the top. On the sleeping man’s face was a specific look that Marvin couldn’t quite fathom. Deep in thought, yet not thinking at all. But what he adored most was how soft, how gentle, how peaceful he looked. The relief on his face was clear as he escaped his hectic college-kid lifestyle for a brief few hours. And he deserved every fucking second.

“I think that’s our cue to hit the hay,” Cordelia yawned, tugging off her hat and switching off Whizzer’s iPad, tucking it away. The other three quickly pulled their respective blankets over themselves, feeling the contrasting warmth wash over their skin like the waves at sea. Marvin clicked off the fairy lights. They were asleep almost immediately.

It was the best filler day they’d had in a while. 


End file.
